Exclusive! Mukti Prime, a new Bangla OTT player, kicks off with a wide slate of content

The Indian audience has most likely replaced typical TV with OTT already with the arrival of new regional players like Mukti Prime, and the competition is only going to surge. The Indian OTT market has risen substantially last year and is expected to witness more growth in 2022. Yet, the enormous potential of the Bengali market remains largely limited, among a few players.
Ahead of its launch, OTTplay caught up with Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee, content advisor for Mukti Prime, to know how Mukti Prime plans to fight for its share of the pie.
Excerpts
Tell us how the idea of Mukti Prime emerged and how does it plan to stand out?
First of all, I’m the content advisor to Mukti Prime. I’m not the one who has given birth to Mukti Prime. Mukti Prime is the brainchild and the initiative of Partha Chatterjee. He ventured into real estate and diversified into entertainment with a love for arts. He grew up in Serampore within a culture that provided him the impetus to understand that entertainment is for all. And his idea was to bridge the urban-rural divide. It’s interesting to note that he never planned to follow the 90s models of Haranath Chakraborty or Swapan Saha. But he wants to bring in entertainment that cuts across the urban-rural divide. That is the business objective of Mukti Prime and Chatterjee roped me into this new role.
What kind of content do you plan to bring out? Tell us about your plans.

I have a background in economics and management. I have worked for multiple corporate organisations in different roles. I worked with production companies, radio channels, and even advertising before I wedged into performing arts completely. I have studied management, marketing, branding, marketing communications. Naturally, these conversations are easy for me. But, advising content for an OTT is completely a new area to me.
And I plan to follow two things. One is my love for literature and secondly, I want to balance it with new age stuff. Because somewhere, I strongly believe that the audience still depends on and loves the essence of literature. And the audience here still connects to Subarnalata. I feel, it is still relevant and we need to talk about it. So, my idea of content is to empower and engage my audience. My primary focus is to see that if our content cuts across the segments or not. I mean there has to be a balance between solo and family viewing. I may not be able to revive the culture of watching a sunday movie on television with the family but I can try and give content, which brings back a smile to your face. I personally believe in the dependency on literature. And I would like to point out something very important about this app. There is a lot of content that is relevant to various districts. It’s the primary focus of Mukti Prime.
 

Would you like to share some details about the content?
Absolutely. There’s this director called Prantik Gayen who has actually directed a show on the app called Crime Branch, which will have nine episodes. It is going to be an exciting thing to watch. He has also directed a few other series called Sperm Thief, Bikini Beach. These names would sound very titillating but they are actually very breezy comedies. There’s another series called Ganesh Murthy, directed by Gayen. There’s a film by director Susanta Mondal called Tej, which actually encapsulates a journey of a girl from Bankura. I would also like to mention another series called Canvas, which is being directed by Aritra Sen. The story revolves around a university town where a series of murders takes place. In this series, I’m acting with Bidipta Chakraborty and others. So, there’s a lot of content that Chatterjee has lined up for the viewers because he understands the culture and also the sentiment of the audience of various districts.
 

What sort of challenges you have faced so far?
Well, the competition is really fierce. So, the first objective is not to crush any local player. The objective is to be there and to stand out with the merit of our content.
There’s a trend nowadays where various OTTs are gradually pushing soap material onto their platforms. What do you think about that?
Well, I don’t know if that works or not because television is a completely different ballgame. And I wouldn’t say that the television audience doesn’t watch OTT but I believe that’s the challenge. In fact, we want to bring back a lot of women as an audience for our OTT app. Chatterjee and I want to reinvent and revisit the classics.


What are the genres one can expect from Mukti Prime?
Everything. There’re going to be thrillers, comedies, erotica, family drama and even signature originals. At the moment, we are shooting an original called Bidushok by Amitabha Bhattacharya, which is about a rickshaw puller. The film features eminent theatre actor/director Goutam Haldar, alongside Twarita Chatterjee. We are trying to concentrate on the subaltern landscape.
But it doesn’t imply that the urban landscape is saturated. No. The urban landscape has to survive with the rest. And the other landscapes have many stories to be told on the OTT platforms. We need to utilise the power of storytelling to explore the stories of Purulia, Bankura, Bishnupur, Bardhaman, everywhere. The demand for quality content will always remain and there is enough room for everyone in the market.

 And lastly, what do you think about the censorship of OTT content?
Art is a way of expression. People have every right to express what they want to. Censorship is not a realistic idea at all. There’s a movie called Blue is the Warmest Colour, which has graphic nudity but its beautiful. There’s often erotica that may bring tears in your eyes. Why do we need censorship anyway? To protect who? I still don’t understand the idea behind restricting someone’s way of expression. Particular content is already classified based on its suitability for audiences. Sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity - if you come across any of them, then it’s ok because it’s part of the film. Rather, I would like to add a very important point that all the OTT platforms today should think more about content and not just stars. It is also what we are trying to do. Let’s think, innovate, explore, share and let’s forget about censorship.